Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Third series (IA playstranslatedf03benauoft).pdf/82

 andra Etelvina, and her august son, Prince Florencio, the late apparent heir.

. Invited? On the contrary, I am here precisely because I was not invited.

. Impossible!

. Apparently I am considered a déclassée; it is my own fault in a way. In Paris I was presented to the Prince officially by the Italian Ambassador, but here, of course, there is no etiquette. One comes for a change, to amuse oneself. One associates with everybody, just as if one were in the country. The Casino, the races, the shooting-club are all neutral ground. Well, one day, at one of them, I chanced upon the Prince with—with his…

. With Imperia.

. Should I have refused to bow to him? How absurd! I am not like Lady Seymour, afraid to be seen in public with a fellow countryman, an artist like Harry Lucenti.

. It would have been absurd.

. Art and beauty are sacred in Italy. One of the popes said apropos of Benvenuto Cellini, that such artists were above all laws. I did not hesitate to meet the Prince's innamorata, nor absent myself from the companies at her villa, nor hurry to leave the Prince at the moment she arrived, when only a few remained—the intimates, the inner circle. They are the most fascinating. However, the Prince has taken my condescension for moral abdication. That is the reason I am here without an invitation. Naturally, he did not seem surprised, but when the Princess saw me, she was like an icicle.

. She is extremely old-fashioned. She receives only dragons of virtue.

. And discretion, like the daughter of the Duke of